Our New House @ Kallang - Select ID

It's been abt 3months since we collected our key in Dec. After 3 months, we still haven't started renovating... very si1 bai4 rite?!?! Anyway, my initial plan is to renovate during my maternity leave so that i got time to supervise the reno. Eversince our little princess is borned, 24 hrs a day doesn't seem enough for me. And worst is... i am going back to work on 31st March! Thinking of it makes me wanna cry cos there are tonnes of work awaiting for me to clear and imagine i still have to take care of my little princess @ nite - I am very stressed even thinking abt it now. A lady ask me today whether i will consider #2? What i have gone through and going through doesnt encourage me to want to have 2nd one. My mum say my sis-in-law want to have more kids - of cos lah, during their #1, my brother will wake up in the middle of the nite to feed and change my nephew. My brother-in-law too will wake up in the middle of the nite to feed and change my niece. How abt my husband? He will wake up for a sec and tell me that adelle poo or hungry and then he doze off wor. Good rite! Well, to conclude - i pai mia, what to do?!?!?! Have become maria of the house and really p*** me off sometimes! :(

Anyway, back to the renovation thingy. We started to get quotations since Jan before i hit the delivery ward. Previously we went to one of the reno fair in expo but only 1 guy - DesignerGuy came back to us with his quotation whereas the rest MIA. However, his pricing and design idea not to my type so i am not keen to do biz with him. Then we went to Darwin Interior to check out their showroom @ Bendemeer. We like some of the design in their showroom and got a quote too. But we want to do some 'market survey' so we went to TPY to check out other IDs as well. We talked to Substance, Unimax and Design Profession. The most impressive one is Unimax with 8 yrs warranty and beautiful wallpaper!! Of cos all of them gave us quotations and needless to say Unimax is SUPER Ex among all else how to give 8 yrs warranty right? Anyway, i did up a comparison chart between the 4 of them. I find Substance and Darwin prices are quite ok but becos renotalk mentioned that Substance doesnt have license so i decided to drop Substance.

Before i deliver Adelle, i also started to read the thread of Upper Boon Keng in Singapore bride. Thanks to Arizona who invite me to check out the link via this blog site. :) The thread is really useful and i learn quite a few tips and info from the fellow forumers. In Mar, i read one of the forumers using this ID call Ideal house so i drop them an email enquiry and a guy call Steven follow up with me. We sent him our floor plan via email and wrote to him our requirements. Shortly, we received his quotations and find that their price is quite competitive to Darwin. We decided to shortlist Darwin and Ideal house. So during the month of March, we are more actively thinking which ID to choose cos the mosquitoes in my house started to drive me to the wall and i just can't tahan to stay more days in this super dusty and mosquitoes house. I have to pester hubby everyday which ID to choose. Finally, we decided to look at their workmanship to make the final decision.

Last sunday, we managed to get Darwin to show us 2 units that they renovated in our area - Upper Boon Keng. Honestly, i find their design so-so and very 'uncle/aunty' kind. Hubby find their workmanship no good especially the tile laying gap was quite big. Then Steven - Ideal House sms me to follow up on the quotation and ask me if anything else i need. So i reply jokingly that i want better price! hahaa.... :p Well, i personally find the service from Ideal house is much better than Darwin. Anyway, we also saw a unit @ TPY that Ideal house has done up. We like the design - trendy/modern, very close to what we like, tile gap was small and workmanship looks good! So we already have in mind who we will award the tender. Hahaa... i guess i have done too much tender in my workplace until even off work, i also practice the tender style - ask for few quotations, do comparison, shortlisting, do reference site visits then finally award the winner. :p

To conclude, we decided to go with Ideal house and on saturday(22 Mar) we signed on the dotted line with them! Based on our current requirements, it will cost us abt $24K to do up the reno and one thing i am very happy is becos Ideal house price is negotiable and we don't have to pay GST! Well, i simply don't want to pay 7% to govt cos if i were to select Darwin, i will pay extra 7% loh.... ;) Ok, i am looking forward to the 3D drawings and will share more in my Part IV, V, VI, etc posting on the renovation process! So exciting that i am going to move house liao!! :)